Autonomous robot company opening St. Pete office

Rovex Technologies Corporation founder and CEO David Crabb has experienced hospital logistical challenges firsthand. He’s an emergency room physician by trade.  

This led Crabb to explore autonomous robots and how they could assist. In 2024, he started the Gainesville-based startup and began to develop Rovi – which can carry stretchers. 

The organization will be opening an office at St. Petersburg-based incubator spARK Labs by ARK Invest in February. 

“Obviously in Florida the healthcare industry is huge and there’s a great need for it,” Crabb explained. “There are a lot of health systems, especially in St. Pete, that want to move medicine forward.” 

Rovex is in talks with multiple hospitals.

The spARK Labs by ARK Invest office will be used to work on robots that are locally deployed and serve as a station for the employees who are attending to the hospitals. 

Additionally, it will be a “hub” for traveling. The proximity to the Tampa International Airport, he said, will allow team members to travel to areas of interest more quickly. 

Crabb added that the incubator also offers a variety of resources.

“It helps when you have young companies right next to each other,” he explained. “You can share contacts, share interesting insights and things like that and you all grow and learn together.”

One of the biggest hurdles Crabb noticed in the emergency room was patient transport. There can be as many as 20,000 transports per month in some hospitals.“Robotics is that true move towards physical help,” he said. 

By implementing robotic technology, this can allow staff members to focus on the “tasks that we need human touch on” such as infant care. 

Rovi is expected to launch in a hospital setting later this year. It will move empty stretchers to start. The company’s goal is to transport patients autonomously once U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval is granted.  

Designing the machine was not an easy process. 

The Rovex team had to ensure that it could be attached to any stretcher or bed with free spinning caster wheels. Additionally, they needed to make sure that it could fit into specific spaces like elevators. 

Creating its overall look was another challenge. Crabb focused on the patient experience. For example, the front of the robot has a screen – which can smile. 

 “We want to be friendly and disarming because people are in a vulnerable state in the hospital,” he said. “They’re hurting and are tired of waiting.” 

Additionally, there is a back-facing screen for patients. Crabb compared it to a “flight tracker” feature on an airplane. Riders can see where in the hospital they are headed and how long it will take. 

The prototype for Rovi is being tested at the company’s Gainesville headquarters. Crabb and his team have created a mock hospital – affectionately called Rovex General. It was built to the same Facility Guidelines Institute standards that healthcare facilities abide by, he explained. 

Crabb hopes to launch more autonomous products in the future that can assist with moving items throughout the hospital such as equipment and trash. 

“The goal is to offload that work from our healthcare workers. They really need to be able to work at the top of their license,” he said. “They’ve trained for years and years, and yet maybe 20 to 25% of their time is actually being spent using all that training. A lot of their time is being used for simple logistical stuff.” 

Rovex website